My Secret You
by KissKissCrush
Summary: Ginny's obsessive involvement with an older man abruptly ends the life she had and pulls her swiftly into another where every thought is dangerous and she must conceal and twist her own feelings about everything she knows to protect herself and her loved ones. She learns to walk a dangerous line with the assistance of an unlikely alley who has been doing the same for many years.
1. This Dark Madness, And All For You

AN~ This story is nearly complete but it's been sitting dormant for weeks while I've worked on other fics. So, I'm hoping I can breathe some life back into it by seeing if anyone even wants to read it if I _do_ finish because this is not a very common/popular pairing. Heh. Anyway, first fic in ten+ years, so be gentle with me, I cry easily. (I'm not joking, I'm a huge sissy.)****

I've attempted to respect 's rating policy, even though I find it bizarre, so if there is content which is inappropriate I would prefer if the complaining party addressed me about it first before reporting me to the site so I can consider editing. **This story contains frank, realistic allusions to sexuality but not explicit descriptions of sexual activity. **

Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter nor anything connected to it and am not attempting to make a profit from this work which is purely for fun and the free entertainment of fans.

****

Chapter **One**

** This Dark Madness, And All For You**

Out among the trees, the fog that been drifting in large, softly conquering shapes around the buildings and through the streets all day had now settled into what appeared from a distance to be a tangible, white covering over the underbrush. As though you could step upon it and it would lift you up and allow you to travel above the ground on its rolling, cottony back. But it parts as you approach, of course, thinning at first and then almost disappearing as you cross its borders and plunge ahead into the forest.

In a clearing in the middle of a dark stand of trees stood at least twenty motionless, cloaked figures. At a distance they could have been strange pillars but closer they took on form and became more like tall, menacing chess pieces, their feet hidden in the low creeping fog. They stood in a uniform circle framing a tense scene unfolding within.

Five people knelt on the ground close together. One a teenage boy, almost a man, with dark unruly hair and notably green eyes. Slight red marks on each side of the bridge of his nose indicated that he usually wore glasses. A thin scar broke up the otherwise unblemished skin of his forehead. Next to him was another boy, this one with shockingly red hair, wearing a sweater slightly too small. While the first boy looked impassive, this one's face was not nearly so controlled, his features were set in an expression of such undeniable contempt that it was immediately understandable why his hands were bound roughly behind his back. Next was a man with hair as red as the boy. He was controlling his emotions almost as well as the dark-haired boy, still a look of desperation he couldn't quite hide was there behind his eyes. A petite woman with soft pink hair, limp across her forehead, blood sticking it to one temple was leaning weakly on the last figure, a man aged before his time with light brown hair and the hollow look of occupational exhaustion around his eyes. The four which were conscious were watching two people standing in the center of the circle, one pacing and one still. It was evidence of how serious this exchange was that another man, nearly impossible to ignore at any other time, with his frightening, skull-like white face and red snake-like eyes stood to the side, forgotten momentarily.

The still figure was a girl in her late teens whose hair was somehow, impossibly, even redder than the two men kneeling in front of her. She was unbound and casting occasional glances at the five but mostly staring unfocused at the ground.

Pacing slowly around her, obviously enjoying the scene immensely, was an imposing man with long hair so blond it was nearly white and the kind of cruel, handsome face that allowed one to get away with many shocking things easily.

"I can see that this is a lot of fun for you, Lucius," said the red-haired man rather bravely. "But unless you intend to murder me and my colleagues here, you should get to the point."

"You seem oddly eager to die, Arthur. But that would spoil everything, you see, including my 'fun', as you so accurately call it. It just so happens, that the reason you're here-and not dead-concerns your dear daughter here." He stood close to the girl and brushed her long hair back over one of her shoulders, examining her pale face closely. "As you may have guessed by the fact that you are bound, and she is not, Ginny is here not entirely against her will for reasons I would be delighted to reveal to you as soon as possible. Or would you like to tell them, Ginny?" He smiled at her greedily but she avoided looking at him.

She bit her lip and now cast her eyes resolutely upward into the trees, blinking in the sort of way one does when they're attempting very hard not to cry.

"No?" He said raising his eyebrows and laughing, he turned back to the kneeling figures. "Well, we've come here tonight to collect young Ginny," he gestured widely to the many cloaked people surrounding them, "It was only a happy coincidence that so many . . . _important_ members of the Order happened to be so close by. We were just going to-what is it your precious Muggles say, Arthur?-"leave a note." But now, I get the immense pleasure of telling you to your face what's been going on right under your nose for many months now. See, Ginny and I have sort of an understanding. I find her very interesting-it would be hard not to I think-and she's been _very_ accommodating in letting me explore that interest with her. Numerous times, once even in your own house, in fact. While you slept. I don't want to be crude, so I trust that you will understand my inference and not require me to be ungentlemanly." He smiled at the red haired man he had called Arthur.

Arthur huffed. "How dare you. You speak of being a gentleman in the same breath that you tell me you've been using an Unforgivable Curse to . . . to," he threw an apologetic look at the girl before he said, "force yourself on my daughter . . . "

Lucius laughed snidely. "She begged me for it," he said, leaning close to her so that his breath heated her cheek which was already hot with a deep pink blush.

At this the red-haired teen threw himself forward, an inarticulate scream of rage spilling from his lips. He succeeded in doing no more than falling flat and lay writhing on the dirt, inhaling wet bits of earth as he breathed, his cheek pressed to the damp night ground.

Arthur seemed to be waiting for some response from the girl, Ginny, but she was determinedly not looking at them now even when he said her name in a gentle, pleading voice.

It was then that the menacing white-faced man stepped forward.

"Girl, did my faithful servant here at any time use the Imperious Curse or any other spell, trick or potion that would rob you of your ability to exert your own will?" His voice was so thin it could have been mistaken for that of a very frail old man but it was obvious that he was anything but by the malevolent aura that surrounded him.

She closed her eyes before answering and then said, "No." The word wasn't audible but the round vowel sound of it formed her lips into its shape anyway which was enough to convey the terrible news to her friends and family that she had been party to something she was ashamed to admit to them.

"And is there any truth to Lucius' assertions that you and he have been lovers for a time preceding our little meeting here?" He asked.

This time she simply nodded.

Arthur gasped wetly.

"Good. Now, as Lucius has already indicated we did not expect to encounter anyone tonight, but since we have, it seems only proper that you should be here to witness this next part. As though it were fated!" He gestured to them grandly as he finished speaking, a forced smile on his terrible, pale face.

Lucius stepped behind Ginny and slipping his arms around her, gently rolled up her left sleeve to the elbow. The white man grasped her wrist in his spindly fingers and drew his wand.

"She's going to take the Mark‚" he said.

"No!" shouted Arthur looking as though he would lunge forward as his son had.

"The other option is that you all die here tonight," the white man responded.

"I'd rather die!" Arthur shouted.

"You'll have to kill me as well," the boy on the ground said fiercely.

The other three remained silent. Ginny was not offended, she would rather that people not die for her mistakes. Not people she loved. And she loved all of these people desperately.

"That's touching, boys. But unfortunately for you, the choice isn't yours," he turned to Ginny. "It's hers. What will you do, dear Ginny? Join me, take my mark and serve me alongside your unlikely paramour? Or will your noble loved ones _die_ along with _you_ in this chilly wood?"

There was no pause before she spoke audibly for the first time. "Yes, do it. I'll take it. Let them go." Her voice was firm and unwavering if unusually breathy.

"Nooooo!" the boy on the ground was sobbing now. "Ginny, don't. Please, don't."

The other man, still propping up the pink-haired woman calmly said, "Ginny, it doesn't matter. We'll come for you. I promise."

Then the dark-haired boy also spoke, his voice as clear and sharp as though he were speaking confidently in front of a large crowd giving a stirring speech. His words were aimed at the white man with an intense focus that made everyone watching shift uncomfortably. "I'm going to kill you. Everyone knows it. Even you. You can kill and destroy everyone I've ever known, but I will do it. You will die seeing my face last, Tom."

The white man, who hadn't looked faintly distressed by any of the outbursts so far, twitched slightly at this and then recovered and said, "Give them back their wands." A man stepped forward and dropped them in a clattering pile a foot out of reach of the brown-haired man. "Your bonds will disappear in a moment, but if you have any grand ideas about snatching up your wands and cursing me, know that they have been turned into portkeys which will transport you home the moment you touch them. But first," he turned with ceremonial reverence back to Ginny, and Lucius who was still embracing her from behind. "You must take the mark willingly, by repeating these words after me‚" he set the tip his wand on the soft underside of her forearm, "I solemnly swear that I will serve the Dark Lord and no other until I die or else die having betrayed him."

She inhaled shakily.

"It only hurts for a moment," Lucius whispered near her ear.

She said the words and a green and black fog bloomed from the wand tip and took the form of a snake curling in the air, then flipping over it dived straight into her arm and a black image began to trace itself quickly in her flesh. She screamed, her arm jerking in his grasp and fell back into Lucius who held her tightly.

"Yes," the white man said as way of explanation for her reaction. "It hurts more if your heart isn't in it."

Arthur was panting. His eyes fixed furiously not on the man who had just marked his daughter but the one holding her, whispering comfortingly against her hair in a private, familiar way that was awkward to witness. "I'll destroy you for this, Lucius. You won't be free or alive for long after what you've done," he said.

"Oh, but don't you see?" Lucius said, with inappropriate delight in his voice. "Ginny loves me! You'll only hurt her if any harm comes to me. Now if you'll excuse us," he turned Ginny to face him, still slightly limp in his arms but standing under her own power and kissed her lovingly. She didn't resist. He lifted her from the ground and turned in place, they disappeared like that with a vicious crack leaving the image of their embrace burned into the minds of the reluctant witnesses, each of them shedding silent tears in the darkness as all of the robed figures vanished one by one and their bonds loosed sending them sprawled in the dirt. The white man's laughter seemed to stay in the clearing long after he was gone.

It was a long time before any of them reached for their wands, not wanting to go home and explain to anyone what had just occurred. How could Arthur tell his wife that their only daughter was gone? Trapped in the vile embrace of a man who had treated them with nothing but contempt always. She was just gone now, probably irretrievable.

And marked by evil.

+!+

Ginny and Lucius reappeared in the vast, dark entrance hall of Malfoy Manor. She pushed back from him as far as she could, still drained. She managed, however, to get her right arm back far enough to slap him soundly across the face.

"I don't love you," she said harshly. "I hate you!"

He caught both of her wrists to stop her from hitting him again when it looked as though she may try.

"You don't," he said.

She struggled trying to kick him and he laughed at her weak attempts to hurt him. He pushed her gently against the wall and released her hands, confident she wouldn't hit him again as soon as she stopped resisting and sagged against him.

"You don't, do you?" He questioned softly, his lips grazing hers.

She turned her face, a sudden, climbing heat rising in her cheeks. Shame filled her as she remembered how even standing in that clearing, in front of her friends and family, his proximity, his voice and scent, had aroused her terribly. She'd tried to lie to herself and pretend it was the cool night air that made her skin tight and flushed when he said that she'd begged him to take her but I was true, she had. And she would do it again. She didn't know if he was right that she loved him but she knew that even now, with her heart broken and her flesh stinging and burning from the Mark, that she wanted him. He turned her face and kissed her and she didn't fight him. Her arms went around him and she pulled him closer, opening her mouth to his.

"What the hell!?" A shocked and angry voice interrupted their embrace.

Lucius turned his head toward the sound. "Hello, Draco‚" he said sedately. Completely unabashed by his compromising situation.

Ginny gasped and turned her face away. Draco was surprised enough at finding his father kissing someone in the hallway that he didn't seem to even recognize her in the dark. But she couldn't escape it. Lucius stepped away from the wall pulling her out behind him. She desperately tried to hide, behind him, behind her hair. But Draco was intrigued now and he moved to see her.

"Is that _Weasley_? What are you _doing_ with that nasty little blood traitor, father? Don't you have any self-respect?" Draco shouted, incredulous, paler than usual.

"Watch how you speak to me, Draco," Lucius answered with a small warning in his tone.

"Well‚" Draco said carefully, "I just mean-she'll turn you in to her traitor father!"

"Oh, I think we'll be okay," Lucius said. He brought Ginny forward. "Her father knows and there's nothing he can do about it."

"How do you know that? They'll be looking for her, probably with a pack of bloody Aurors!"

Lucius didn't answer, instead he took Ginny's arm and held it out so that Draco could see the fresh Dark Mark etched on it. "She took it of her own will and coming after me would put _her_ in risk of Azkaban as there is no evidence at all she _isn't_ on our side and quite a lot that she_ is _now to which they can attest!"

"So you won't let me take it but it's fine for your little slag?" Draco said sarcastically.

"_She_ took it on the Dark Lord's orders," Lucius said, less controlled than his usual placid tone. "_You_ are still more useful not having it. If people think you're innocent, you can go places and do things you couldn't otherwise. You know what I mean," he said significantly. "Now, if you don't mind, it's late." He took Ginny's hand and led her toward the stairs.

"I'm going to mum's!" Draco yelled after them.

"Give her my regards," Lucius called back lightly as they disappeared.


	2. An Asshole and A Gentleman

**Warnings: Profanity including one directly related to sexual activity, non-detailed but very suggestive descriptions of sexual acts.  
**

**Thanks to my two reviewers on the last chapter, those cheered me up ridiculously!  
**

**I love Hermione in this chapter. Onward!  
**

**Disclaimer: I do not own any part of the Harry Potter universe and am not attempting to pass of any recognizable characters, places or storylines as original ideas nor make any profit from this work which is purely for the free entertainment of fans. **

* * *

**Chapter Two**

**An Asshole and A Gentleman**

Arthur shut the door to the Burrow carefully behind them but he knew even that small noise would draw Molly Weasley in seconds. He desperately whispered, "Not a word, to bed immediately. I have to find-think of some way to tell Molly."

Harry and Ron climbed the stairs without argument and heard Mrs. Weasley enter the kitchen and her exclamation at her husband's disheveled appearance. They were almost to Ron's room, far above, when they heard a heartbreaking, wailing cry come from below. So full of anguish it seemed it would crack the very bones of the house itself and bring it tumbling down to bury them all in its rubble. Those who knew what had occurred that tragic night would have welcomed its crushing embrace.

They climbed into their beds without undressing beyond their shoes and cloaks. An hour of sleepless silence passed before Ron said, "How could she?" Harry didn't know which thing he was referring to, her taking the mark, or the revelation of her unholy relationship with Lucius Malfoy, but he supposed it did not matter.

As a Junior Auror, Harry knew that anyone taking the mark should be more important than that same person's sex life, but still, it wasn't images of the terrible thing he had actually seen, of the vaporous snake diving into Ginny's arm, that kept him awake, but the things he had not seen, the things Lucius had claimed and Ginny reluctantly confirmed. He saw Lucius appearing in Ginny's room only a floor away from where he lay now. And Lucius kissing her bare throat, touching her with his evil hands and Ginny begging him like he'd said. Begging him to do things to her that Harry once thought he might do.

He eventually dozed as the sun began to rise, persistent images of the girl he loved making love to a man he hated and who had once almost killed her, still assaulting him terribly.

Ron was not in his bed by the time Harry woke only a few hours after falling into a light sleep. He couldn't sleep soundly or long. While the thought of Ginny and Lucius haunted him while he was awake, he dreamed of the Dark Mark when he'd finally fallen asleep.

As though she had been waiting in the hallway for any sound of movement, Hermione pushed the door open and rushed into the room. She closed it behind her and sat on Ron's bed across from Harry. As eager as she had appeared to be upon entering the room, she seemed reluctant to speak now.

Harry took a painful breath and said, "Which parts do you know?"

She looked surprised. "Is there more than one part?"

Harry covered his face with his hands. He didn't want to cry about this in front of her and holding it in was making the contents of his chest burn terribly. He didn't trust himself to speak.

"Ginny took the mark . . . " she said.

"Yes."

" . . . and she's gone with the Death Eaters . . . somewhere . . ." She prompted.

"To the Malfoy's," he said, rage smothering the tears and allowing him to speak.

"What!? How do you know that?"

"Because. _He took her._"

"Who did? Draco?" It seemed silly to her. Draco was an okay wizard but Ginny was better, it didn't make sense.

"No. Not Draco. His _father_." He didn't want the name in his mouth not while in his head he could hear Ginny saying it, calling it out as they coupled.

"Lucius? Why?" She asked, completely confused.

"Because!" he shouted without meaning to. "Because, they're . . . together. They have been for awhile they said."

"Together? I don't understand."

"You're not stupid, Hermione! You know what I meant. _They're fucking_. No one understands it," he said and for the first time his anger shifted to Ginny. She'd _let_ him touch her. She'd _enjoyed_ it. He finally reacted the way he thought he would but didn't the previous night by leaning over the far side of the bed and vomiting onto the floor. When he sat back Hermione was pale and quiet, still on Ron's bed with her hands both covering her mouth.

"When we broke up, I mean, I expected her to date, I accepted it, but not-not that she'd do something like this, be with someone like him," he said bitterly.

"Oh, Harry," she said and then not knowing what else could be said she went silent again but with her hands in her lap now.

"He's married!" He shouted. "It's wrong in too many ways."

"He's not actually," Hermione said quietly, afraid to say anything that might make it sound like she was defending him. "I . . . overheard Draco and he talking in a classroom at the end of the year last year, he's divorced."

"I don't care, Hermione! He's still a Death Eater! And I'm not in the mood for your vast knowledge of everything ever!"

Hermione, who had been trying to be gentle to this point snapped back, "Well, maybe everybody else isn't in the mood for you to be selfish right now! _You_ broke up with _her_, Harry. You don't have the right to act like some jilted boyfriend. Why don't you think about how her_ parents_ feel? Or even how she feels? She's probably afraid. She was just forced to swear allegiance to Voldemort! And you shouldn't act like she's disgusting for being with him, she's young and Lucius Malfoy is the kind of man who could make women . . . _do things_ they might not normally do. And he wouldn't need magic to do it."

Harry was watching her with a look of horror and shock on his face. After a long moment he said, "But . . . _he's an_ _asshole!_" As though she had overlooked this in her assessment that he somehow had some sort of power over females.

"Well, it's an unfortunate fact that women sometimes have a tendency to like assholes. Even smart women. I remember being pretty embarrassingly enamored with Gilderoy Lockhart at one time even though every sign in sight showed that he was quite obviously the biggest jerk on the planet. I didn't see it."

Harry and Ron had known about Hermione's crush but he had never heard her say it aloud until now. He hardly thought this compared.

"Yes, but you thought Lockhart was nice. And heroic. She _knows_ he's awful . . . he tried to kill her!" He said, he couldn't make himself accept this.

"Maybe she sees something else in him," Hermione said forgivingly.

"There's nothing to see," said Harry obstinately.

Hermione stood. "Well, I'm going to check in and see what the Order is planning." She walked to the door then turned back for a moment and said, "You know, Harry, sometimes _you're_ kind of an asshole, I'm sure there's a girl out there for you too."

She shut the door on his flabbergasted expression, a smile that she knew would be the last for some time on her face. It was gone by the time she reached the bottom of the stairs. Ginny and her had become close in the past year, enough that Hermione had considered telling her her biggest secret. Now there was no one and the same solitude she had been living with her whole life, descended upon her once more.

+!+

_ Six months earlier_

Ginny had seen him get on the elevator even though she was at the back. Although he was not unusually tall, his striking, platinum hair was uncommon enough that she recognized him immediately over the heads of the group of wizards in front of her even though she could not see all of his face. She hoped he would get off on another floor before the lobby where she was going to floo home.

Her palm started to sweat on the piece of parchment clutched in her hand, her Apparition test information. As each floor went by and more and more wizards stepped off, she became increasingly agitated until the last one exited on the second floor and she almost bolted out after him. But they they were only two floors away now and she bit her lip as the door closed leaving her alone with him except for the purple paper airplane memos flying around the light in the ceiling.

She anxiously watched the glowing numbers as the elevator stopped on floor one and the doors slid open. He turned to see who was behind him, stepping politely to the side in case they were leaving. She stayed where she was, shifting awkwardly. His eyes stopped on her for a second longer than seemed necessary when it was obvious that this wasn't her floor.

All of the purple memos swept out except one and then the doors slipped closed and they were alone again. She was gripped by an unreasonable fear. Yes, this man had once done something that had nearly led to her death but surely he wouldn't try to attack her in the middle of the Ministry. Or had he even recognized her? Her own hair was as arresting as his was in a crowd. A deep, almost shocking red, that instantly marked her as a Weasley, a pure-blood family nearly as well-known as his own. But the Weasleys weren't the only people in the wizarding world with red hair and he had not interacted Ginny since she was eleven.

She didn't look much like her younger self now aside from her hair, which was longer and fell down her back in a silken sheet, one side of her deep part pinned away from her face. Her body, though hidden under her robes bore the curves of maturity now. She simply hoped he had not recognized her and brushed aside his prolonged gaze as nothing. She could hear the voice of her brother, Ron, in her head when she would tell him this story later, "Huh! Wonder what he was doing there, the filthy git. Something slimy no doubt." She smiled at this at just the moment when he turned for a second time to look at her. Almost simultaneously with this occurrence the elevator slowed and then shuddered to a stop with a ridiculous squawking sound. The floor lurched and Ginny grabbed the closest thing to steady herself: Lucius Malfoy's arm, as he flung his other arm into the wall.

Shocked and blushing slightly, she let go blurting, "Sorry, I didn't mean to!" in a horrified voice.

He didn't seem nearly as upset about her grabbing him as she did. She knew now that he did not know who she was. She was just a pretty young stranger. Maybe he had even liked it. She brushed this thought aside, the feeling it elicited unnamable. She had noticed with a disturbing shock that he smelled very nice up close. Smells had always been tactile to her. Potions classes were uncomfortable for this reason whenever someone burned a potion or the ingredients were very pungent. The smell of Lucius Malfoy had caused the skin on her arms and stomach to tighten and then tingle slightly. It was a sensation she associated with arousal. It must be because someone she knew used the same cologne or something. Something not associated at all with this man, who if he knew who she were would certainly have recoiled from her touch maybe even been crude enough to insult her.

Either way, it was a few moments before she registered their situation. The lift had stopped. The humming noise it had been emitting had died away leaving a pressing silence in its wake. No, not all silent, she realized, a soft flutter came from above suddenly very noticeable in the quiet and they in unison lifted their faces to the ceiling of the lift where the paper plane memo was still flapping in a lazy circle.

It was so bizarre a scene already that this last detail was the thing that seemed to cap its insanity for Ginny and she let out a nearly hysterical little burst of laughter that was far too loud in the small space and then slapped her hand to her mouth to stop it. He looked at her, startled by her strange outburst. He smiled very warily the way you would if you were trying to act polite toward a mad person. She supposed this was exactly what he _was_ doing as she was behaving quite oddly. As he'd turned to look at her she'd caught his scent again and the electrifying action in her skin broke over her a second time causing her to step back clumsily and hit the wall. She fumbled at the handrail trying to appear to have stepped back casually but her awkwardness was hard to hide.

"I'm always afraid this is going to happen when I get into lifts . . . that they'll get stuck I mean," she babbled trying to recover from her weirdness, carefully flattening herself against the wall to avoid being close enough to smell him. She didn't know if she had smelled a cologne like whatever it was he smelled like before but she was quickly become uncomfortably aware that whether or not she had was not the reason why the fragrance on him was causing her to react this way.

Ginny had never considered herself attracted to conventional people before, she'd dated a few boys in school, mostly because they were there and nice to hang around with but they'd never really made her feel swoony the way she'd heard other girls describe. She'd almost felt it with Harry but the first time she'd truly been hit by that silly, giddy mind fog was with Remus Lupin during the summer before her forth year at Hogwarts when the Order had been spending a lot of time at Grimmauld Place. Maybe it was because he was a werewolf. She was a little bit afraid of him even though he was perfectly gentle in manner at every time in which she'd seen him. Now that she thought about it, Harry had an element of danger about him as well, because no one really knew just how he'd escaped the Dark Lord as a baby and there were many rumors that he could be a great dark wizard himself. After she'd gotten to know him and found that he was pretty normal and not at all inclined toward the dark arts, she'd lost interest mostly, but he still had these moments in which he seemed very gloomy and that had drawn her. She wasn't interested in the Dark Arts either, but danger and darkness had this magnetic appeal she didn't know the source of. Sometimes it made her feel isolated. Especially in the family she came from.

She had only seen Lucius Malfoy in person once since that day in Flourish and Blotts when he'd slipped the diary in with her school books and she couldn't recall clearly what her impression of him had been at the time other than that she thought his hair very pretty. The Malfoys had sat behind the Weasleys at the Quidditch World Cup but she had no clear memories of it because of the riot after the match ended.

Now, however, the realization that she was, as an adult, uncomfortably attracted to him was both exhilarating and terrifying. She felt that she could have confessed her crush on Lupin to a close friend, maybe Hermione, and she wouldn't have been laughed at or thought so very abnormal, but this, who in the world, her world, wouldn't react poorly to this admission?

"Well, I'm sure they'll be along soon," he said staunchly in response to her confession about getting stuck. He was still watching her carefully as though clearly he thought a fear of lifts was ridiculous and a person with that fear probably unpredictable and dangerous.

She just nodded mutely and they stood in the silence for a few minutes as he drew visibly more annoyed at the wait.

"_Idiots_, as if I've got nothing better to do than stand around in Ministry lifts all day," he muttered imperiously.

Ginny gave up on standing, her legs beginning to ache and slid down the wall as quietly as possible to sit on the floor of the carriage which was pleasantly cool. She saw him glance at her from the corner of his eye and then forward again with a look that suggested he found her behavior very inelegant and that he thought sitting on the ground of a public place to be beneath him. She wondered how long they would have to be trapped before he'd get over himself enough to rest. Probably not until his legs snapped. She almost laughed again at this and was luckily able to suppress it. He wasn't looking at her now anyway but had begun to fiddle with the buttons as though he could make the lift move just by pressing them with enough authority.

After what she thought to be nearly an hour, Lucius, who had started leaning on the wall after awhile, finally deigned to sit down opposite her on the floor, stretching his legs out parallel to hers. The lift area was like the Ministry cars and the Weasley's old flying Ford Anglia in that it expanded to accommodate its inhabitants and shrank down when it didn't need the space. Efficient, but in this case unwelcome as the lift's area had contracted to suit both inhabitants comfortably had they been standing. Now that they weren't their feet reached most of the way to the wall opposite them, their legs only not touching because both had angled theirs out slightly to avoid it when he sat. She succeeded in not throwing him a smug look for sitting.

"If I had already passed my Apparition test, I guess I wouldn't be in this mess," she said nervously waving the parchment in her hand.

He gave her an exasperated look and said, "You cannot Apparate inside of the Ministry. Obviously."

"Oh. Right. Of course," she said, feeling vastly stupid.

"It's all right," he said. "There are many grown wizards who don't know and attempt it, the dolts."

"I'm grown," she said a little defiantly.

"Are you?" he said, amused now. "You look about sixteen."

"I'm seventeen,_ obviously_," she said waving the paper and throwing his snark back at him, "nearly eighteen," then regretted this last bit. Only young people who were desperate to sound older ever said they were one age and almost another.

"Nearly eighteen," he repeated. "I apologize then, Miss . . . ?"

"Uh, Delacour."

"Sounds French."

"It is, my mom is . . . I'm not, really," she added unnecessarily.

"Clearly. Did you study at Beauxbatons?"

"No, Hogwarts," she said, knowing Beauxbatons would be a lie too big to cover if he asked any sort of follow up.

"Then you probably know my son, Draco," he said.

"Uh, I'm not sure. Is he younger than me?"

"No, older. By a year."

"Oh, well, I didn't really hang out with older people much," she said hoping he would drop the subject of his son.

"You wouldn't have had to, Draco has a way of standing out," Lucius said with a smirk.

That was true, the pompous prat. "Oh, um, was he in Slytherin?"

"He was," Lucius said proudly.

She pretended recognition then and said, "He has blond hair, right?"

"It runs in the family."

"Yes, I remember him now. I had just forgotten that was his name because all of my friends called him Smooth Boy . . . because he thought he was smooth," she said wishing she'd made up a lie that didn't insult Draco and sounded less idiotic.

But Lucius just laughed. "He does," then after a pause he said, "I guess that runs in the family as well."

Ginny had a short, fierce moment when she thought, _'Is he flirting?_' Feeling a distant and never-to-be-satisfied taboo attraction to him was one thing but having him hit on her would be utterly frightening. Especially if he figured out who she was before they got out of here.

"And what house were you in?" he asked, courteous enough to not make her fill the silence after his little boast.

"Ravenclaw." The only acceptable answer.

"One of the clever ones," he said, and the way he was looking at her shifted subtly and she suddenly felt as though he could see through her to her bones.

"I guess so," she said, trying to keep up under his odd, intense gaze, "Haven't been very clever today," she muttered, referencing her own inscrutable actions since the lift had stopped.

"No," he said honestly. "And what do you intend to do now, Miss Delacour?"

"Um, I'd like to play Quidditch."

"Did you play at school?"

"Yes, but only my last year," she said to avoid him asking her how she honestly could not have known his son's name if she'd played him in Quidditch.

"Draco was on the Slytherin team, a seeker," Lucius said.

"I'm a chaser."

"I would think you spent more time _being_ chased," he said with a smirk. "I'm surprised, actually, that Draco never mentioned you. What is your given name?"

"Oh, well, I spent a lot of time in the library, you know, reading. It's Molly," she said far more serenely than she felt after his clearly flirtatious compliment. Molly was her middle name so it just popped out. But it was also her mother's name she realized too late. Damn.

"I'll be sure to ask him if he remembers you," Lucius said and his eyes swept her frame rather obviously and in such a way that she felt as though he'd done it with his hands.

'_He knows I'm lying!'_ she thought desperately. As though this realization were a spell, the lift suddenly began to hum again and slowly started to move downward once more.

Lucius stood stiffly and then reached his hand out to her. She took it and he pulled on her a little as she stood so she was much closer than necessary once one her feet. The lift stopped and before the grille slid back to reveal an empty lobby he brought her hand up and kissed it very aristocratically, his mouth lingering a bare slice of a second too long. She was holding her breath so that she couldn't smell him.

"Miss Delacour," he said as way of a goodbye and stepped out into the lobby, walking swiftly toward the fire places.


	3. Post Traumtic

Notes~I realized on the last chapter that I have a recurring theme in my stories where the female love interest becomes attracted to the male one when she smells him. And then she slaps him in the face at some point. Odd and probably revealing.

A hint at a timeline change occurs here regarding the time and circumstances of Bill's werewolf injuries. He still has them, they just didn't happen at Hogwart's because Draco did not attempt to kill Dumbledore while still a student.

A short, clean chapter but significant.

_Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter and am not claiming to in any way nor am I trying to make a profit from this work which is purely for the free entertainment of other fans. _

**Chapter Three**

**Post Traumatic **

Two days after the incident with the broken lift, a letter arrived at the Weasley breakfast table addressed to "M. Delacour c/o Ginny Weasley".

"M. Delacour? Who is that?" Ron said, rudely, looking over Ginny's shoulder at her post.

"It's just a joke with someone at school," said she quickly, her fingers white on the parchment.

"Well I hope it's not at the expense of your sister-in-law," Mrs. Weasley said sternly. Her opinion of Fleur, Bill's wife, had risen substantially since she had still married him even after he became disfigured while on patrol for the order.

"Er, not really, more of a compliment actually, stupid really. Anyway, I've got to get ready for my Apparition test this afternoon," Ginny said, getting up from the table quickly, leaving her breakfast half done. Her appetite had completely evaporated upon reading the words, "M. Delacour". This letter could only be from one person. She dashed to her room and shut the door firmly behind her. She laid the letter on her bed and stepped away from it. Why would he write to her? Was it a threat? Surely he would have understood her lie after it was revealed? He'd tried to kill her! Finally she just grabbed it and broke the seal rather sloppily. It was short, but it crushed the air out of her lungs momentarily:

_ Miss Delacour,_

_I knew you were lying to me, but couldn't fathom why until I questioned D who, after a few details immediately informed me that my charming-if a little clumsy-broken lift acquaintance was in fact, Ginny Weasley, the youngest child of that hopeless, Muggle-loving fool, Arthur Weasley. Now, I understand well enough why you lied to me about your identity. That's obvious. What is less obvious is why you flirted with me given that you knew perfectly well who I was._

_I await your response._

_ LM_

She held the letter in front of her, staring at it for a long time after she'd finished reading it a third time. It wasn't a threat. She didn't know what it was but he wanted her to respond. But not just to respond, he wanted her to explain why she had flirted with him. Had she flirted with him? She had been trying to push the memories of the encounter from her mind since it happened and hadn't been very successful, only managing to keep them away from her conscious thoughts but they were there underneath, begging for attention the whole time. Now, she allowed herself to think about them. They rushed in vividly as though her mind was just waiting for her to give in so it could dwell on them in detail.

She saw him as he looked at her a little too long when they stopped on the first floor. And when she'd grabbed his arm to avoid falling. And she remembered the way he smelled. The memory now creating a similar effect as before in her flesh. But it had been _he_ who complimented her and eyed her salaciously. And kissed her hand. Maybe he had read her mind? The idea that he could read minds made her remember that when he kissed her hand she had wondered what his mouth tasted like. But it would be pretty bold to invade someone's thoughts and then accuse them of flirting openly. Beside that she had heard Harry describe what it felt like having your mind read and she hadn't felt anything like that.

She sat down to write, before she could convince herself not to. Her letter was even shorter.

_L, _

_I did know who you were and I don't remember flirting with you. _

_ G _

She didn't want to use Ron's owl to send it. The thought of his tiny, twittering owl hooting shrilly and swooping about Lucius Malfoy's head with her letter was embarrassing. And she wasn't going to use Errol either. Having the elderly owl die in front of him would be equally mortifying and would only remind him how poor and second-class she was. She hadn't forgotten that he'd made it a point to insult her father in his letter. Why did she care what he thought? She wasn't ashamed of her family. Still, she took the letter to the post office inside the ministry after her Apparition test just the same.

* * *

Arthur Weasley had made it clear to everyone, when he daughter was taken, that his wife did not know about Lucius and Ginny's relationship and that he did not want her to know. Knowing she had the mark and was basically a prisoner was enough. It made things a bit awkward but that awkwardness was about to end only to be replaced by a different, more terrible reality: the one in which Molly Weasley knew everyone had lied to her about where her daughter was.

The morning post had come and with it a photograph that sealed in everyone's mind the idea that Ginny was never coming home.

The photograph lay in the middle of the kitchen table just in front of where Molly sat weeping with her face in her hands. Hermione saw it as she came down to breakfast. She had been staying over, sleeping in Ginny's room, trying to offer support to their family.

It was weird staying in Ginny's room. Everything halfway finished in there, like the room of someone who had died suddenly. On the first night she had shifted some things on Ginny's overcrowded desk and a book with a hollowed out center slipped off the edge. A collection of letters spilled out of it across the floor. She didn't need to read them to know what they were: she had just found the evidence of Ginny's secret relationship with Lucius Malfoy and maybe an explanation of how it started.

She scooped them up and placed them carefully back in the book without even being tempted to pry into her friend's personal business by reading one. She'd sealed the book with a charm and slipped it onto the bookshelf so that no one less scrupulous than her would either.

Ginny had been gone nearly a month now but every day seemed as tense as the day before as they waited for news of her. Now it had finally come, and while no one expected it to be good, they had thought there was anything but her death which could cause But Hermione supposed that was the point. They'd taken Ginny to mock the Order. To weaken morale. To hurt them internally. That's why they had left the witnesses alive. It was like sending five cancerous tumors back into the Order and it was working magnificently. Everyone was distracted and sloppy.

The photograph was black and white. Two figures stood formally in the center of the frame dressed in simple but elegant clothing that was unmistakable in purpose. It was a wedding photo. The man, his long blonde hair, appearing white in the frame, was alternating between looking at his bride with a satisfied smile and out of the picture with a haughty smirk. The woman, her red hair hidden in shades of grey was standing in a way that would hide her left forearm, exposed by the short sleeves of her white dress, from view. She was looking at her husband with a mixture of grief and longing and out at them with an expression that seemed to beg for rescue. The bottom of the picture was drenched in Molly's tears, giving the impression that the couple was standing in a lake.

"She looks . . . healthy," Hermione said.

"Healthy!?" Ron shouted angrily. "With that disgusting monster standing next to her?" He cast a look at the photo just as the image of Lucius looked outward, smug in his victory. Ron snatched up the picture and was making to tear it up but Mrs. Weasley lunged at him and grabbed it back screaming, "No!"

When it was safely back in her possession she said, "It might be the last one." And her crying began again with a funeral pitch.

Everyone had caught the gravity of what she had said. That they might be looking at the last picture of Ginny that they would ever see.

* * *

Lucius knew that for Ginny, a wedding without her family was no wedding at all so they hadn't had one. They had been married in a simple ceremony performed by a ministry official in a small drawing room at Malfoy Manor in the late afternoon on a Wednesday. The witnesses were Draco and Bellatrix Lestrange. The latter ordered there by the Lord Dark and they both watched the proceedings with identical looks of distain. The ministry wizard flinched at the sight of her but carried on nervously with a nod from Lucius.

The vows had been simple, with traditional promises of fidelity and companionship. No mention of love. Lucius had never told Ginny he loved her and she had never said it either. He had instructed the official beforehand not to include this word when he found out that Bellatrix would be attending the wedding.

He knew the Dark Lord couldn't ever think that Lucius cared about her as more than an amusing diversion. However, Lucius was still a respectable public figure and a wife of less than half his age was less scandalous than a live-in girlfriend of the same age difference. Their kiss at the end was ceremonial and chaste. Her dress was simple, white and unadorned by frills. Lucius thought she was rather breathtaking with the combination of her fiery hair and her milk-bottle complexion together with the pristine essense of her dress but he did not say so. He'd cast her one softened glance when he first saw her appear in her dress, before he heard the crack of Bellatrix, Apparating in behind him and his face became blank. It was announced in the Prophet with only a few lines at the bottom of a page near the back:

Lucius Abraxas Malfoy weds Ginevra Molly Weasley

in a private ceremony Wednesday attended by his

son, Draco Lucius Malfoy and a family friend.

* * *

"No, friend of _her_ family," Mad-Eye Moody had growled on seeing this.

They'd all hidden the paper from Molly that day. She already knew of course, but they didn't want to remind her. As though she could forget. She carried the wedding photo around tucked into her robe, a bit of spell-o-tape patching the small tear in the left side near Lucius' head that Ron had managed to make before she'd gotten it away from him.

Molly had thought about Lucius Malfoy a lot since this picture had arrived on Thursday morning. She took it out often when she was alone and between the many tasks she intentionally tired herself with each day. She wondered about this man, only a few years younger than herself, and with a son older than his now wife, her daughter, and what his motivations were for taking her away and for having a relationship with her in the first place.

Although she now knew that the others had known when Ginny was taken about this inexplicable situation between them, no one had given her any details after this photo came beyond saying they knew. Was Lucius kind to her? Did she seem like she was being manipulated? Ginny had always been strong and capable. She didn't believe that Ginny would do do anything against her will. She wondered briefly if the Imperious Curse was being used on her and then decided that would be worse than Ginny willingly being with a man so much older than her.

It was a dizzying transition, one day Ginny was gone, kidnapped, Molly thought, and horrible things reeled through her head as she scrubbed and swept and cooked from waking until she fell into bed each night to more of the same in her dreams, and then weeks later, this photo had come and while at first it had made her feel sick and angry, after a few days when she began to think about it more clearly, she started to believe it might be a good thing. After all, despite the Dark Mark she was trying so hard to hide, she looked unharmed, a little peaky maybe, but not as though she'd spent the last month in a dungeon. And If she was married to a high level Death Eater then it could be assumed that this offered her some protection in that circle. As Lucius Malfoy's wife, she was most likely not being subjected to torture or abuse at the hands of numerous, faceless Death Eaters. And since Lucius was still playing the part of innocent regular citizen, it might also mean that she could see Ginny again somehow.

And then there were the expressions on their faces. At first she had seen nothing but fear and sadness on Ginny's and cold, satisfied smugness on Lucius'. But there was something in between this, something she hadn't seen because she wasn't looking for it. She'd seen what she wanted to in both of them, but after the shock of what it was had dulled, she began to see what was really there. Lucius wasn't so much satisfied as though he'd won a prize when looking at Ginny, but maybe the satisfaction of being married to a woman he cared for. Could it be possible? And what of Ginny? Molly had assumed the fear in her face was of her husband, but what if it was _for_ her husband? Because the look of pleading she gave out of the picture, which Molly originally thought was a cry for assistance, seemed to say that she needed them to understand that her marriage wasn't a forced and heartless arrangement. But one she had agreed to willingly, to a man she loved.

* * *

End notes: So, in this chapter especially, there are some phrases and slang that are definitely American. Aside from obvious things like "lift" and "jumper" I don't not know the British equivalent for a lot of words and situations. So, I haven't attempted to try sounding like I did. However, if you see something that is so glaring it's distracting, let me know so I can fix it and it doesn't ruin the flow of the story for non-American readers.

~KKC


	4. Put Your Heart On Ice

Warnings: Non-explicit sex, mild language.

Notes: I'm very tired but I wanted to get this up tonight. Sorry if there are typos or out-of-place words floating about because of it. Things are going to get more interesting from here on though!

* * *

**Chapter Four**

**Put Your Heart On Ice**

Ginny was sitting in the library a week after arriving at Malfoy Manor when her Mark burned for the first time. She gasped and dropped the book she had been holding but not really reading and sat straight up from her reclining position in the chair by the fire. Lucius came into the room in a rush the look on his face confirmed what she feared: Voldemort was calling them.

"It might be nothing," Lucius said, attempting to sound reassuring. "Sometimes he just wants to talk and he doesn't trust you yet so it's unlikely he'll do anything dangerous, or reveal too much with you there. We'll go together since you've never been." He looked like he would kiss her and then stopped, his face went blank and he just took her hand instead. "Put your heart on ice," he advised and turned on the spot.

Ginny still had not adapted to Apparition and didn't use it as her primary method of travel. Side-along Apparition was even less comfortable. The squeezing feeling stopped soon enough though but was immediately replaced by another. This one was like being wrapped in a dark fog. One that was tangible and could crush you. It was similar to the way Dementors felt. That same clammy sensation of having the love and joy sucked from you. She remembered Lucius' advice and attempted to make her heart go cold but did poorly and it merely ached with suppressed emotions instead.

They were facing a long table set elegantly for what looked to be an elaborate dinner. Several people were already sitting. At the head sat Voldemort with Bellatrix seated at his left, her posture worshipful and sycophantic.

"Ah, Lucius!" Voldemort called to him as soon as they appeared. "Come, sit." He gestured to the chair on his right. Lucius went forward and Ginny trailed him mutely. He sat and Ginny stood awkwardly behind his chair for a moment.

"You may sit there, by Bellatrix," Voldemort addressed her and pointed across the table.

Ginny walked the long way around the table to avoid going behind his chair even though when finally seated she would be only feet from him. She knew she looked terrified and tried to fight it down, maybe even look haughty like Lucius. '_Cold heart cold heart coldheartcoldheart,' _she thought as she walked. Most of the sitting people were watching her and then she was relieved that at least she could hide her trembling hands under the table once she was seated what felt like a very long time later.

During this short interlude, more Death Eaters had Apparated in and the table was nearly full by the time Ginny at last took her seat next to Bellatrix who sniffed at her and returned to gazing lovingly at Voldemort.

Ginny sent a quick glance at Lucius who was sitting straight-backed and blank-faced not looking at her. Her eyes darted away and she registered the person sitting across from her with a little start: Severus Snape. She had almost forgotten that he was undercover, that he was in the Order and here under Dumbledore's command. She didn't know what this meant for her and even though his face was not what she'd ever have called a _friendly _one she was so grateful to see him and the reminder he brought that people were fighting Voldemort that she had a hard time crushing the hope it brought up in her before it reached her face.

When every seat was filled, Voldemort rose to address his guests.

"Friends," He said as though they were members of a jolly party and had chosen to come by invitation rather than compelled by a burning tattoo to this location. "Welcome. I am so glad we are all here to have a nice meal together. Cover a few matters of light business perhaps. For instance-" he turned his gaze on Ginny, "-we have a new addition to our noble cause. A girl of purest blood, whose devotion I have been assured-" a glance at Lucius "-is most trustworthy. A young girl's emotions are a powerful potion indeed."

She didn't know how many of those sitting there were also in the clearing the night she took the Mark as they had all been wearing masks then but she knew at least some of them knew about her and Lucius and that this was what he was referring to, that Ginny would be loyal because of her implied obsession with her older lover. Lucius' face twitched very slightly and Snape merely looked above it all and a little bored, which was his normal demeanor. She wondered what he really thought.

"And now if you'll stand, my dear," Voldemort said, "we can toast you."

Ginny stood awkwardly, without pushing back her chair so that it she was standing with her knees slightly bent. Everyone at the table raised their glasses to her and Voldemort said, "To Ginny." They all mummered this and drank. "To pure blood!" someone down the table said. Voldemort's eyes fell on a short witch with yellow hair and she shrank a little with every face suddenly turned to her. Voldemort smiled tightly and said, "Yes, to pure blood," and they all repeated it and set down their glasses. Ginny sat, gratefully, daring to look at Lucius again. He looked slightly more relaxed and she hoped that this was a sign that things were going well and that she had done okay.

Ginny had hoped that she could fade into the background now but apparently Voldemort had sat her near him so he could interrogate her. Lucius had apparently not expected it either because he grew visibly more nervous with each question. She didn't know what Lucius had told Voldemort about her but she figured she was safe if she remained neutral about her family and maybe showed a slight distain for Muggles and Muggle-borns. Severus was talking quietly with the man on his left most of the time but she knew from having him as her professor for seven years that he was listening very closely to the conversation. She realized he would relay this information to the Order and she almost thought to try to send some sort of message but quickly discarded it as a stupid thing to do which could endanger the lives of her and Snape and Lucius and she stuck to the script she was making up in her head, based conveniently on things she had heard Lucius say in their time together and Draco say at school.

"I understand you're friends with Harry Potter," Voldemort said. "He's an old friend of mine as well." A light chuckle ran around the table.

"He's friends with my brother," Ginny said. That was honest.

"I was led to believe that _you_ were close with him as well." He wasn't going to let her escape the association.

"Were. We aren't now. We broke up more than a year ago," she said.

"Oh, young love. It can be_ so_ heartbreaking," he said in a creepy, fake sweet voice that turned her stomach on end.

"He's a bit selfish actually," she added not really knowing why. Anything bad that could be said about Harry could only help her here.

Voldemort laughed and the sound of it rose up to the ceiling in a terrible echo. Others smiled obligatorily but Snape's amused smirk was wholly genuine. Lucius only did not smile, a detail which did not go unnoticed by Bellatrix.

"What's wrong, Lucius? Don't like hearing about your little girlfriend's_ other _boyfriend?" She said in a saccharine baby voice, smiling at him obnoxiously.

"If you had been outside my bedroom an hour before our arrival here, Bellatrix, you would know that I have nothing to fear from any other man-or boy as it may be-when it comes to keeping a woman's attention," Lucius shot back smoothly.

It was a lie but Ginny's cheeks and forehead burned from embarrassment anyway because there was truth in the boast about his sexual prowess with her if not about the exact timing of their last encounter.

Voldemort chuckled delightedly and Bellatrix was temporarily silenced, a sour expression on her face. Snape gave Ginny a momentary look of pity before turning back to his conversation.

"And then there's Hermione Granger," Voldemort said, not to be swayed by the petty bickering of his servants. "A Muggle-born, thought to be very good at magic, parents are some sort of healers?" he said as though reading from a piece of paper.

Hermione's parents! She could lie and try to mislead them by saying they were surgeons or veterinarians but what if he found out? What would happen if he knew she lied? She caught a slight movement from Snape as he deliberately knocked over his wine glass and when she looked he nodded almost imperceptibly while pulling his wand out to clear away the spilled wine. Voldemort must already know, he was trying to see if she'd lie to him to protect a Muggle-born.

"Yes, they're dentists," she said.

He did not ask what a dentist was which confirmed that she'd just passed a test because he'd known the answer already. The questions continued for a while and she'd answered as honestly as possible without revealing too much or seeming as though she was hiding anything. She suddenly had an overwhelming rush of empathy for Severus Snape. _'He's been doing this for years,'_ she thought. After only an hour she felt exhausted and sick. She regretted calling him greasy and vowed to give him more of the benefit of the doubt in the future. He'd certainly saved her life-and maybe Lucius' as well-tonight.

Her glass of wine which she had been sipping at kept refilling whenever she set it down. She had never drank a lot before and couldn't really keep track now because if she drank half the glass it was full again when she looked back but she knew she had probably drank too much. This was obvious when Lucius came to help her up from her chair and she tripped on her feet and fell into him with a silly and uncharacteristic giggle.

They Apparated back to his house-their house?-and the awful sensation made her feel more sober immediately. As soon as their feet where on the solid ground of their bedchamber he hugged her fiercely. She laughed a little and said, "Lucius, you're squishing me!"

He let go enough to look into her face. "You did so well," the relief in his voice now told her just how afraid he had been that she could have done very badly. "Maybe I should have briefed you. But I didn't quite know what to expect either. I'm sorry."

"It's over," she said soothingly. She didn't know why she should be trying to calm him down. He'd sat with Voldemort countless times no doubt.

"It's not over. It'll never be over," he said as though he was just realizing the gravity of this fact just then.

He grabbed her face and kissed her with a surprising desperation that made her stumble back, dizzy. He led her to the bed and undressed her swiftly but with a gentleness she had rarely encountered with him and when he made love to her she felt as though he were trying to consume her. With his hands, his mouth. They lay in the darkness afterwards and he brought her arm up to his face to plant a soft kiss on the Dark Mark imbedded there. "I'm sorry," he breathed against her skin and she understood that he was not kissing her there because he loved it but because it was a wound in her that he had caused and could never heal. "I'm so sorry," he said again into her hair and she held him against her chest, running her fingers through his hair until he relaxed in her arms and fell asleep before she did.

She lay awake for a long time, staring at her arm, the skull and snake a blur in the darkness. She understood that she had to become someone else now. If she wanted to stay alive, she'd have to pretend to be as ruthless and pure-blood obsessed as they. A true Death Eater. But how could such a thing be done? Snape would know. She needed his help. But how could she explain this to Lucius without revealing Snape's double-agent status? She didn't know, and she fell asleep just hoping that it would be a very long time before the mark on her arm burned once more.

* * *

It was ridiculous enough that he had started sleeping with her in the first place. Filthy little ginger Mudblood lover. Then he'd brought her _home_ for some inconceivable reason. Like some mangy stray animal. He hoped his father wasn't a big enough fool to actually think himself in love with the stupid girl.

This preposterous marriage was suspicious and throughout the short ceremony he watched his father's face carefully for signs of sentimentality or softness. He could see Bellatrix was doing the same but he assumed it was for different reasons. He didn't much like her and hadn't spoken to her when she'd arrived. They watched in tense silence as the bride and groom exchanged dull vows and slipped rings that were as extravagant as the words were plain, onto each other's fingers. Draco smirked at Ginny's ostentatious ring which was a large square-cut emerald in a silver setting and which he thought looked ridiculous on her. She wasn't the type to wear opulent clothing and jewelry. The simpleness of her upbringing was printed on every aspect of her. To him it looked like a flower that had been placed in a crusty porcelain vase, spiderwebbed with cracks and yellowed with age. It just made the vase look plainer and dirtier and sadder. But a Malfoy wife, he understood, had better damned well have a Malfoy appearance and he expected that over the coming weeks, Ginny's appearance would change drastically as more jewelry and custom robes and dresses, fitted, revealing and very expensive enveloped her in a tornado of his father's overbearing taste and need to look better than everyone and, of course, show off his property. Because whether or not little Ginny Weasley knew it, that's what she was now. Just Lucius' property, like his house and his servants and his money and his son.

Draco hadn't really been paying attention to the ceremony and only noticed it was over when everyone's posture suddenly became less stiff. He snapped back trying to look like he'd been with them the whole time. Ginny looked solemn and was already fiddling unconsciously with her ring. Lucius looked relieved.

"Congratulations, father," Draco said formally.

Lucius turned to him, a moment of brief joy in his face, stamped out quickly. "Thank you, Draco."

_'Good God, he didn't think I was serious did he? Pathetic._' Draco thought and he saw that Bellatrix have observed long enough was preparing to depart. He hurried next to her in the moment before she Disapparated and caught her elbow. Bellatrix gave him a dangerous and startled look and he let go.

"Look," he said, whispering quickly. "Can you just pretend to leave and instead just go to the garden outside and I'll meet you there? I have something I need your help with."

Bellatrix eyed him with displeasure, but he knew the fact that he was trying to hide something from his father got her attention. Anything she could get on Lucius to pass on to the Dark Lord was worth taking the time to get. She would love to bring him down. She used to suppress this urge while he had still been married to her sister but now there was nothing to stop her from hurting Lucius. She'd never really treated Draco like a nephew but she was fond of her sister and Draco was hoping that loyalty would carry far enough to get him what he needed. She nodded very slightly and disappeared with a crack.

Draco turned back to where Lucius and Ginny were standing, holding hands now that Bellatrix was gone, talking quietly to each other, their heads close together looking utterly foolish he thought. The ministry wizard had Disapparated while Draco had been talking to Bellatrix. He approached the couple and Lucius looked up, visibly more relaxed now that they were alone he said, "Ah, Draco, will you have dinner with us?"

"I promised I'd meet Pansy," Draco said tersely. He turned to go, "Have a nice night," he'd called over his shoulder not knowing if they caught the sarcasm in his tone and not really caring.

He took the long way to the garden, leaving by the front door and walking around the darkened perimeter of the manor to a series of large hedges behind which he found Bellatrix pacing, annoyed.

"I want you to take me to him," Draco said without preamble.

"To _'Him'_?" She said scathingly. "To the Dark Lord, you mean? Why should I?"

"Because I'm about to be in a position to help him," Draco said attempting to sound cool.

"_You!_" She laughed sharply. "And what could you, silly little boy, have to offer Him?"

"I've just been offered the Defense Against the Dark Arts position at Hogwarts. Snape is returning to teaching potions for some stupid reason I don't care to know," he said.

"We've already got a Death Eater inside Hogwarts. As you obviously know."

"Yes, but _I'm_ willing to do what he apparently isn't," Draco said significantly.

Bellatrix harbored a deep mistrust of Severus Snape and anything which could upstage him or make him lose favor was tempting. Even more so than her vendetta against Lucius. That this whole arrangement might end poorly for both he and Lucius was far to tantalizing to ignore and Draco knew that and had played it perfectly.

"Come on," she said, and grabbing his arm they Disapparated together with a crack that had a grim finality to it. A decision had been made that would have vaster and more dreadful consequences than anyone, even Sybill Trelawney on her most depressing and gruesome day, could have predicted.


	5. I Just Wanted To See You

Warnings: Okay, this chapter contains the most graphic sex I have put into this story. I tried to keep it tame and hopefully it stays within the parameters of 's rating policy which I will tolerate and respect until there is a better site for adult HP fic.

Let's see. The Severus in my story is of the adorable sort. He just came out that way. So if you don't like that, you definitely shouldn't finish this story because he's about to become a major character. The POV here jumps between Ginny and Lucius for most of the chapter. Hopefully the transitions are clear.

* * *

**Chapter Five**

**I Just Wanted To See You**

It was the night that the Dark Lord had found out about Ginny. That was the night he'd gone to her home at the Burrow, the night he'd so joyfully rubbed in Arthur's face. But it was a night that Arthur should have been grateful for. It was the night that he'd saved Ginny's life.

"A girl so close to Harry Potter, rumored even to be his girlfriend! I don't know if I should laugh and congratulate you for your craft or kill you right now for your stupidity, Lucius," the Voldemort had said, pacing in a smooth snake-like path back and forth in front of him.

Lucius merely stared back attempting to look impassive. It was better to let the Dark Lord come to a decision himself before offering suggestions or pleas.

Voldemort stopped pacing at last and turned to look Lucius in the face. "No, Lucius, I don't think I'll kill you just yet-" and before relief could begin in Lucius' heart "-but the girl, I'm afraid, must die."

If these words had been an incantation that turned the target's inside to a terrible, burning liquid they could hardly have rivaled the sensation Lucius experience in that moment at the thought of Ginny being murdered. And all because of him. She was as innocent a person as he had ever encountered. He one crime being with him. If she should die for that, it would complete the path his soul had started a long time ago, leading straight to hell. And there was even a time recently when he thought that Ginny might actually save him, reversing the fate that was now his forever.

"She could be useful," Lucius said, somehow keeping the insane desperation he was feeling out of his voice and not even sure what he was saying. "She's close to the Order although not yet a member. I-I think she would join us." The words sounded preposterous even to his own ears as they came out of his mouth. Voldemort eyed him mutely and Lucius plowed ahead, trying not to babble, hoping he'd say something that could save her life. "Think of how it would demoralize them, if one of their own, their dearest, was found out not only to be having a relationship with a Death Eater but to then join them. Especially because, as you said, she's close with Harry Potter."

Voldemort stared at him for a long time and Lucius carefully and silently blocked a selection of memories that were revealing about him and Ginny, leaving only the most graphically and unemotionally sexual behind. Voldemort had to see Ginny as an object and a pawn or this would never work. He could never know Ginny was a weak spot. They would both die then. At last Voldemort reacted with a small smile and then with laughter that swelled slowly, filling the space unpleasantly with its inhuman hissing echo.

"Harry Potter's girlfriend, sleeping with my top Death Eater and then taking the Dark Mark! It's too amazing to have devised. By anyone but you, of course, Lucius," Voldemort praised. And then solemn again. "But why are you so sure, Lucius, that this girl will join you? Her family and yours are enemies if I understand," he asked cautiously.

It had been a long time since Lucius had actually been referred to as a top anything with the Dark Lord. Lucius could see that he wanted this very badly now that it had been suggested. These next words would need to be carefully placed.

"We _are_ enemies. Our values are as opposite as they can be. However, _she_-I believe her to be in love with me, my Lord," Lucius said.

"Love," Voldemort said, the word had never sounded so rotten and wrapped in poison. "And do you love her as well, Lucius?" Voldemort was staring at him in a most frightening manner, if Lucius said "yes" he felt that the Dark Lord would be happy to give up this new plan and kill her anyway to further punish him for not getting the prophecy three years ago.

"She's just a girl," Lucius said noncommittally, impressed himself with how bored and disinterested he sounded considering that he thought he might vomit if this conversation continued much longer. "She's been useful to me up until now and now she can be useful to you, in the cause. Her blood is pure if not the pathetic sentimentality of her family. She's smart as well, if I'm correct that she is possible to be turned, she could be useful beyond just happy the Order unhappy."

He shouldn't have said this last thing. The Dark Lord was squinting at hims now. "You seem inordinately fond of her, Lucius. I hope you're not knowingly putting us all in danger for so selfish sentimentally." Lucius just looked back, his blank after years of careful practice. There was nothing left to say, he would just have to wait. "However, this is an intriguing opportunity as you have presented it," Voldemort said. "And besides, we can always kill her later if she turns out to be a waste of time." He said this last part over his shoulder as he left the room.

Lucius Disapperated without a word. He couldn't have spoken if he'd tried.

* * *

The Burrow was dark when he reappeared in the field behind it. He stood in the gloom for a long time, waiting for the terrible sickness that had gripped him while listening to the Dark Lord speak so casually of killing her to pass. He let his wand slip from his sleeve and muttered a spell. A silver crow slipped from the tip and took flight up the side of the building, circling one of the towers before stopping on a windowsill. It was a few long, awful moments before he saw the window lift and a pale face framed by messy bright red hair appeared, he could see her looking around in the darkness below and then she started to pull her head back inside and he hastily lit his wand. She paused, her eyes drawn to the sudden burst of light and even though it was dim, his long, pale hair was unmistakable. She waved a hand for him to wait and disappeared. Two minutes later she was outside and running toward him through the grass. He eyed her frayed robe and nightgown with a mixture of pity and affection.

"Nice ensemble," he said, touching her collar, already feeling less awful now, even thinking maybe he had overreacted.

She brushed away his hand in annoyance. "I was asleep. What are you _doing_ here? I thought something was wrong," she said looking him up and down suspiciously.

He hitched a breath he fervently hoped she hadn't heard. She'd been concerned. He'd boldly and frivolously declared her love for him to the Dark Lord but he had no idea if it was true, he was just saying anything he could to save her.

"Well?" she said, sounding a little less irritated but still not warm. "Why are you here?"

Her abruptness wasn't uncalled for her. He'd never shown her much consideration in the course of their odd relationship and he didn't know what to say now except that something had changed inside of him tonight when he thought he'd killed her with his selfishness and that right now he just wanted to be near her. He didn't know how she would react to that admission, it sounded soft-headed and unlike him. He went for sensual instead.

"I just wanted to see you," he said but as he said it he stepped forward to press his body to hers to make the statement less sentimental and more wanton.

She still looked slightly annoyed but softened a little as he placed his lips on her neck. Then she pulled back and said, "What's your plan? Do it right here in my backyard? A little weedy don't you think?" she pulled the long tendril of a particularly tenacious sticker bush from the hem of her robe.

"We could go inside," he said wickedly, enjoying this now. "Ever sneak a boy into your room, Miss Weasley?"

She stood in the grass just staring at him. It was cold and her robe was completely inadequate. She needed to make a decision about this bizarre request he'd made so she could go back inside. She didn't tell him that Harry had snuck in once. But he was staying there at the time. And loved by her family. It was a whole lot different than sneaking in a man her entire family hated, a known Death Eater no less.

"You're hardly a boy, Lucius," she said.

"Oh, but I have the worst intentions and isn't that the real reason fror the sneaking?" He said and was now kissing her jaw line.

She closed her eyes. Lucius' strange power over her had hardly lessened in their months together. She'd already done crazy things to be with him, what was one more?

And it would be terribly wrong. And exciting. So for all the same reasons she had gone to meet Lucius the first time and before she could think about it longer, she grabbed his hand and pulled him toward the house. She paused at the door said, "I don't need to impress upon just how terrible it would be for anyone to find you in our house?"

"I'll be gone before breakfast," he said.

She frowned.

"Before midnight," he amended.

She sighed and opened the door quietly. She paused again and once they were inside to take in the bizarre sight of Lucius Malfoy standing docilely in the Weasley kitchen and then led him to the stairs which they took as silently as possible. Ginny was sure she didn't breath until her bedroom door was shut behind them. She locked it with a spell that would require a password from the intruder and turned to face him.

She expected him to be looking at her in his usual arrogantly seductive manner but he was just standing in the middle of the room, his arms hung as his sides and he appeared somehow broken, like one of her father's toys that ran on batteries and the way they were eerie and frozen when the batteries were removed.

She approached him cautiously, she wanted to ask him what was wrong, everything about this was strange. Why _had_ he come to her house? She stopped in front of him and placed her hands on his chest. He was staring intently at her face. She started to unbutton his cloak and he didn't stop her. He just continued to stare at her until she'd finished undressing him down to his boots which he removed easily without even looking. Then his hands came up and he swiftly lifted off her few pieces of clothing until they stood naked facing each other in the dark room. A cool light from the moon came in the window giving everything a faint silver outline.

Without looking away from her face he knelt on the thin carpet and gently pulled her down in front of him. He sat back on his heels and placed his hands on her hips to coax her into his lap. Wrapping his arms around her waist, he laid his head on her chest and listened to her heartbeat. She stiffened with surprise. He wasn't himself, something _was_ wrong. At any other time he would have torn her clothes off and taken her without preamble. And she hadn't minded, she liked it that way. She liked his forcefulness, his attitude of possession. It was accurate anyway. He did possess her. Even when they weren't together, thoughts of him consumed her.

He hadn't kissed her yet, which wasn't unusual but this seemed different like he was intentionally not kissing her. His eyes were closed and he wasn't moving and there was something in his face, some sort of inexplicable sadness that made her _want_ to kiss him, _need_ to kiss him. He came alive in her arms when she placed her lips carefully on his and he held her to him a little bit too hard but she didn't complain as the heated pressure of his mouth had sent a surprising wave of passion through her. Like at the beginning when all she did was want him and even when she was with him it wasn't enough. There was a heady desperation in this kiss and she fell into it willingly. She was the one who tried to increase the wantonness of their love making but he stopped her and said to go slowly. It was weird. She thought she heard him whisper her name into her hair near the end even.

Afterwards he'd watched her dress and then had lain next to her in her bed, dressed eceptt for his boots. "I won't fall asleep," he'd reassured her and she'd shifted closer to him and breathed his scent, the effect of it hadn't lessened much either from six months ago in the ministry lift.

"Remember the lift?" she asked.

He just smiled.

"What were you thinking?"

"I was mostly annoyed to be trapped. But after a few minutes I started to notice things about you. Your pretty red hair," he reached out to touch it, "and that snarky little mouth you have that you were trying very hard to conceal by being coy and pretending shyness-" he kissed her.

"I was shy."

"And I'll admit, I didn't send that letter on a whim, I had a pretty embarrassingly large crush on you by the time we got out of there, enough that I didn't care who you were even when I found out the truth." He was playing with her hand now, measuring it against his.

Ginny breathed in shakily. Crush? Had someone put a spell on him before he'd come?

"And what did you think of me, Miss Delacour?" he asked.

"I was terrified at first, obviously. But then I touched you by accident-"

"Oh, that was an accident?" he said amusedly.

"Of course it was! You think I just go around groping strange men in lifts?"

"But I wasn't a strange man."

"No. And I was horrified when I grabbed you because I didn't know if you knew who I was and if you had you probably would have sworn at me or something," she said.

"Yes, probably," he said.

"It was then that I noticed how you smelled," she said suddenly embarrassed. He merely raised an eyebrow. "You just smelled, smell actually, really . . . amazing . . . sexy. I can't describe it but it had a very distinct effect on me which you can imagine was pretty horrifying."

"What kind of effect?" he asked, enjoying her embarrassment now.

"You know," she said.

"I don't think that I do," he said, feigning ignorance.

"I was turned on, okay?" She said, grumpy now at being forced to relay this sensitive information. "It was exhilarating and awful at the same time. Every time I would smell you again it was like this overwhelming wave of lust came over me. And right at the end, when you kissed my hand, I wondered what your mouth tasted like," she almost mumbled this last part, her face was now a burning hot pink.

"And what _does_ it taste like?" He asked leaning in to place his lips barely against hers, not a kiss, just touching lightly.

"Like sex," she said immediately. "And black cherries."

He pressed forward to kiss her, a more familiar coarseness returning to their caresses now.

"Did you have any thoughts like that about me?" she asked, a little breathless between kisses.

"I'll show you." He lifted her off the bed and pressed her to the wall. This time it was more like their usual encounters where he handled her a little roughly and made her have to bite her wrist to keep from crying out in the dark, silent house. One word only came from her lips, soft, nearly silent, its syllables infused with a thousand layers of heartache and joy and fear and longing: Lucius.

* * *

The sound of his name was both wonderful and then awful when he suddenly remembered that he had betrayed her tonight and that soon her life would change forever. He almost hoped it was true the lie he'd told about her loving him because it was the only way she'd ever forgive him for this.

* * *

Severus Snape had been avoiding direct contact with the Weasley family since their only girl child had disappeared into the unknown land of Death Eaters. He knew they would be desperate for information about her. He gave them the barest details possible which were that Ginny was alive, healthy and not involved directly in any Death Eater activity. He knew the days in which she would be were quickly approaching as Ginny's favor in the eyes of the Dark Lord was increasing upon each meeting.

Severus had taken to sitting near her during subsequent dinners and gatherings so he could attempt to instruct her in the safest way to conduct herself. It was obvious from her behavior that Lucius wasn't doing it. He had to assume that this was because he thought maybe Ginny was capable of becoming like him, pure-blood obsessed and aristocratic, but Severus who, like her, had not ever been wealthy knew that a heart grown in a simple soil would never truly bloom in an opulent garden of exotic plants, their delicate leaves would pale and look painfully plain among them, overshadowed and perhaps eventually wilted under their grandeur.

Other things he told only to Dumbledore in private meetings. He expressed his concern both that Ginny could be drawn dangerously into that world, most likely spurred only by her desire to please and protect her husband. And he was also afraid that she would not be able to play a part of double agent the way he had for so long and would expose them both at any moment. It was a thin wire he walked each time he appeared at the Dark Lord's call and now he felt like there was another person balancing on the same wire, increasing its instability. The situation was frighteningly perilous.

And to no one did he tell the other things about Ginny's unnerving transformation since her arrival six months earlier. He clothes had changed drastically from the simple, sometimes even boyish clothes of her youth to fine-twined linens and silks and heavy, darkly glittering jewels in elegant settings on her fingers and delicate wrists and surrounding her neck like the finest of slave collars and dangling from her small ears in ostentatious dew-like drops. He knew these things would embarrass her family and despite popular rumors to the contrary, Severus did have a heart. He was certain that the cut of her dresses and robes would also unnerve them. They were fitted impeccably, although some could have bordered on indecent the way the necklines swooped down to expose the soft, milky tops of her small breasts, lifted by corseted bodices unnaturally high. This in particular made him more uncomfortable than anything else as she had been his student and he had known her since she was eleven years old. Of course, so had her husband but he hadn't had the perpetual contact with her that Severus had. he told no one of the amount Ginny drank at Death Eater gatherings and how she often became increasingly handsy with a her older husband as her intoxication level grew until he finely offered his apologies to the host and Apparated them home.

A single time, when he had drank more than usual, Severus allowed himself to imagine what occurred after they had left. Flashes of Ginny half undressed and moaning softly as Lucius manipulated her with his hands, ran his lips over the white flesh of her neck. Of them together with her-. And then he had firmly blocked these thoughts from his mind, ashamed that they had existed at all. He concentrated on being her friend as strange as the idea seemed to him and he had been working out a way to propose to Lucius that Ginny should be taught Occlumency. He felt that it could save her life someday and found himself feeling very strongly that he'd like her to be saved.

* * *

End notes: So, Lucius probably would have said "fancy" and not "crush" when talking about Ginny in the lift but I realize that I do not know exactly how you would use the word to make it sound natural so I went for inaccuracy over glaring ignorance and awkwardness.

Also, thank you so much for your reviews, they make me really happy and I'm lame enough to actually brag about them. I'm glad you're enjoying the story. Most of it is written already so that's why I'm uploading new chapters constantly. That will slow down once I get to the part I have yet to write but as I know exactly (I think) how it will end it should go fast.

And I do not know why keeps destroying my long dashes and making them hyphens. I know it's confusing. Hopefully I can get that fixed soon.


	6. The Death of Anyone So Young

AN ~ Arg. Sorry for the delay in this update. Holidays and other things happening all around. But I wanted to get at least one more up before Christmas. I really like this chapter, it's important, but it was really difficult to edit for some reason.

Warnings: Violence. Disturbing imagery. Character death. Sad sadness.

* * *

**Chapter Six**

**The Death of Anyone So Young**

The box came in the morning while Lucius was at work. A small card on top was addressed to "Ginevra Malfoy" so Ginny opened it without waiting for him. It was the first item of post with her name on it since she had left the Burrow. Except that her last name had been Weasley then.

It was carved wood, a pattern of snakes intertwining elegantly over the top and sides. The wood itself was a deep green, the grain lines which would have been there in any other wood were all but lost in the darkness of the hue. Where they were visible, they were black. She recognized the wood as coming from some tree Hermione had once mentioned: blacksap or blacklap. Something. Neville would have known for sure she thought and as usual, when she thought of people from before, the memories of Hermione and Neville made her throat clench painfully but she did not cry. She had stopped crying. She had taken the advice Lucius had given her before her first dinner with Voldemort and applied it like a suffocating coat of paint to the rest of her life: _put your heart on ice._ There were two exceptions to this: Lucius, and surprisingly, Severus Snape. Her only friend. With Lucius she opened herself as a sexual partner and also as a wife, but a reserved one. They didn't say, "I love you," but she didn't feel their affections were lessened by the lack of this phrase which, when you thought about it, was rather arbitrary. And whether or not either of them felt it wouldn't have changed their situation at all. It might have made things worse even.

With Severus she confided all of the terrors in her heart and carefully listened to and practiced his advice on how to best survive in her new world. In her head she'd still thought of him as "Professor Snape‚" or just "Snape," for some time and couldn't pinpoint, looking back now, when it had changed. One day he was just _Severus_‚ and it felt right. A person to trust. A person between two worlds. Like her. But also unlike her in that he could go back and forth. See her friends and family. She'd never once requested that he convey messages to them for her but sometimes he would come back and give her some small bits of comforting news, saying that her family was well, that her friends were alive. She felt that she could trust that he was relaying the same vague, but no less precious, information to them as well. That she was alive. And subjectively unharmed.

She turned her focus back to the box. It was shut with an intricate silver clasp that slipped apart smoothly when she pushed it. She lifted the top and saw it was lined with black satin, it was a beautiful box and she was sure she would have admired it for its elegance at any other time, but its contents robbed her of any other thoughts. There was an ornate silver mask inside, resting on velvet, it was the kind of mask which covered your entire face. It was the unmistakable visage of a Death Eater. She had seen them for the first time at the Quidditch World Cup when a small crowd of Death Eaters had stomped uncaringly through the sea of tents levitating a Muggle family grotesquely. She didn't know certainly that Lucius had been one of them and she didn't want to think about it now. She knew that he had certainly done things like it for the Dark Lord before, that and worse. She had spent a great deal of effort trying to suppress thoughts and speculations about what Lucius had done under Voldemort's command. That was another name that was vying for dominance in her mind: Voldemort or the Dark Lord? At first he had been firmly the former but after some months he had started to morph into the latter. It was a product of the fact that everyone around her referred to him that way and that they all addressed him as, "My Lord‚" when speaking with him. Even her.

She did not honestly know how much she had changed since coming here. Her family, if she ever saw them again, could probably tell her. And if Severus knew, he didn't say anything about it. But whatever the changes had been up to this point, this mask, small and round, made to fit her face perfectly, would bring about far more profound alterations to her being than any so far. It was clear that the Dark Lord now expected her to participate in whatever activities it was that those who bore the Mark did when they went out in masks.

Lucius had gone only twice that she knew of since their marriage. He'd worn a full black cloak and had the mask in place before leaving. The first time, he'd found her in the hallway as though he meant to tell her something but he did not need to. She eyed the mask sadly, it obscured all of his features except for his distinctive his grey eyes. They stared at each other for a long moment before he Disapparated. She knew there was a chance that he wouldn't return on nights like that, or any night he went to the Dark Lord without her. He could be killed by Aurors, very possibly someone she knew, or he would be killed be his own master for some inscrutable reason that only made sense to that snake-faced monster.

Now it was Ginny's turn.

She carried the box around the rest of the day, placing it where she could see it in each room, as though afraid to turn her back on it. Finally she ended up in the large bathroom connected to their bedroom, sitting on the floor, her back against the tub, the box five feet away on the floor, its lid down and latch done. She sat with her legs crossed staring at it, her mind a mess of pictures swimming in a fog. She had never seen a pensieve but if she had she would have immediately likened the mist in her head to the way extracted memories looked when floating in that shallow basin.

As she was facing the door, she saw Lucius as soon as he entered. He saw her before he saw the box.

"Ginny? Are you okay? Why are you in here?" He asked, a small note of concern in his voice.

She gestured mutely to the box at his feet. He looked down and then knelt in front of it and lifted the lid. He froze for a full minute before gently letting the lid fall in place and turning to her.

He took her hand and pulled her up off the floor. Her legs were numb from sitting so long and she had to hold onto him to stay standing.

She tried to speak, to say all of the things she had been thinking since the box arrived that morning but all that came out was his name, sounding frightened and hollow.

"It could be awhile still," he said, knowing it was somewhat dishonest. If the Dark Lord had sent this it meant that he now expected Ginny to join the active ranks of his Death Eaters. It could be any time. Tonight.

"I'd like to shower," Ginny said tonelessly.

"Of course, do you want-" he trailed off. He wanted to ask if she wanted him to join her. They often bathed together. He finished his question with the slight, silent body language of couples who had been together for a while. It had been a year for them now.

She nodded, her face a flat sheet of fear and confusion. They undressed wordlessly and stepped into the shower. He washed her gently, first her body and then her long hair which turned the dark red of a blood orange when wet. Her hands came up to still his as they smoothed her hair away from her face and then they moved to her face and when she kissed him it was like a mirror of his own emotions floating, reflected between them. Fear and sadness, regret and longing, resignation and acceptance. And now lust as he pulled her against him. Their love-making was frantic, an air of panic enveloped them like people who were clinging to each other in the last moments before the world ended, just trying to feel alive one last time.

Even with the steamy atmosphere of the bathroom and the hot water still coursing around them, and their own heated bodies, slowly coming down from the culmination of their exchange, they both felt the mark, burning unmistakably hotter on their arms, still wrapped around each other. He didn't move, he wanted to stay here, stay here with her, not go out somewhere unknown, go out and come home with a woman fundamentally different than the one pressed close to him now, her mouth as yet unsullied by the dark words of Unforgivable Curses, her hands unstained by impure blood, Muggle and wizard alike. Rude Muggle fighting wasn't common as it was considered crude but Bellatrix in particular seemed to favor it and he'd witnessed her gleefully slapping and kicking incapacitated victims many times, stomping on their fingers until they snapped sickeningly. It wasn't unheard of to get blood on you even if you weren't hitting anyone yourself.

He knew they had to move quickly. Their devotion and loyalty could not be questioned. They dried their bodies, her with shaking hands, and he told her that there would be a cloak for her under the mask.

She opened the box again and discovered that what she'd thought was velvet was actually a long, black, hooded cloak. She pulled it on and stepped into the bedroom where Lucius was already dressed in his own robes, his mask in place but his hood down, his long white hair betraying his identity. The effect was unsettling. Her husband had disappeared completely and been replaced by a creature from a nightmare. She gripped her own mask and felt how solid it was, heavy, she was loathe to put it on. He stepped over to her and removed it from her hands.

"It's not comfortable at first but you'll adjust quickly," he said and he lifted it to her face, reaching around to secure the strap with one hand.

"Keep your hood up, and just try to blend in if possible." He raised her hood for her. Not knowing where they were going, she knew this advice might be useless, there might be nowhere to blend. He took her hand firmly and they Disapparated together, inexorably drawn to the place the Dark Lord had called them.

Bellatrix was near them as they landed. Her mask was different, Ginny noted. There were flaking reddish-brown patches here and there, stark against the bright silver. It looked undeniably like dried smears of blood. Her voice, as sarcastic and condescending as ever, came from behind her mask, muffled slightly but fully chilly as she addressed them.

"Good of you to deign to join us, Lucius. Looks like it's finally time for that sweet little wife of yours to redeem herself as a blood traitor by getting her hands dirty on the right side of this war." She laughed madly and skipped forward to the nearest house.

They were fortunate that there were many cloaked and masked figures running everywhere in what appeared to be the outskirts of a small village. Shrieks and yells and the flash and snap of spells were thick in the air around them. They watched as Bellatrix raised her wand and pointed it at the house. She yelled something Ginny couldn't distinguish in the maelstrom and moments later the body of a man came smashing through a large window and flew to fall at her feet, bits of glass and splinters of wood from the window casing clinging to his limp form. A movement inside the house through the broken window caught her eye and she raised her wand again, a second figure, a woman, came out to land near the first. The man tried to speak apparently because she raised a pointed black boot and stomped viciously on his face.

"Do not address me! Filthy-blooded scum!" She shrieked.

Ginny turned away, sick. Lucius squeezed her hand.

"Is there someone else in your house?" Bellatrix demanded.

Afraid to answer and receive a similar treatment as her husband, the woman simply shook her head.

"Stay here," Lucius said pushing Ginny behind a tree, "you were seen here at least and let's hope that's enough. I have to go, I'll come back for you."

Ginny pressed her face to the tree and the absence of the feeling of bark on her forehead reminded her of the silver mask obscuring her features. She peeked out from behind the tree and saw Bellatrix circling her victims gleefully. She trod mercilessly on the man's wrist and he didn't react. Ginny suspected he was already dead. She watched for what seemed like far too long as Bellatrix tortured the woman whose screams became increasingly watery and garbled before she fell silent as well.

Ginny was also scanning the scene carefully, looking for an opportunity to take the advice that Severus had given her and directly ignoring that of her husband. Lucius did not understand the direness of the situation for someone who was playing both sides of this definitely-for-keeps game.

At the rear of the house, almost lost in the dark, Ginny spotted the fat, white drum of what she knew to be a propane tank thanks to her father. She knew what was in it was extremely flammable.

When the figures on the ground had stopped moving, the woman's body bent into a terrible contortion that would have undoubtedly been very painful had she been alive which Ginny was almost certain she was not, several other Death Eaters began to converge on the scene. Now was the time to act. Ginny stepped forward into the glow of one of the streets lamps to ensure she would be seen. She allowed her hood to fall back in a way that could look accidental letting her unmistakable red hair show. She steadily pointed her wand at the propane tank and said, "Incendio," in a crisp, determined voice.

The effect was impressive, the tank exploded in a medium sized fireball which raced up the side of the house and set the roof on fire. Enhanced by its magical origins the fire tore through the house turning walls to ash, the items within curling and burning and some combusting in the heat. It was just a house. Full of things the dead Muggles wouldn't need anymore but she hoped it was enough to impress the Dark Lord. Most of the other masked figures had stopped to witness her destruction of the house, some had turned to her and some to the blaze. It was as she watched a ceiling beam fall through the broken window hole that she heard the screaming. A teenaged boy was inside the heart of the inferno that was the house, he was trying to get to he window but the flaming beam was blocking his way. His clothes were on fire now and he was screaming and Ginny leapt toward the house, screaming herself, ready to dive madly into the flames and pull him out. A strong arm caught her and forced her hood back over her hair. A series of pops announced the arrival of a dozen figures, without masks, wearing blue robes. Aurors.

The person who had grabbed her said, "There's no time, Ginny. I'm sorry." And he Disapparated taking her with him.

They landed on the thick carpet spanning the large entrance hall of Malfoy Manor and she fell to her knees, the smell of smoke was heavy in her mouth and nose. She tore at the mask trying to get it off of her face. A pair of hands slapped hers away gently and undid the strap. Severus was kneeling in front of her, his own mask gone, his hood thrown back. She grabbed at the front of his robes.

"I thought just burning the house would be good you know, like you said. Something flashy but where no one would be seriously harmed. I didn't know he was in there! _Severus, she said the house was empty!_" She raved, wanting to vomit, to shrink to nothing, to burn herself.

"You didn't know," he said, his hands wrapped firmly, bracingly around her upper arms.

She hyperventilated. No tears came, not even dry sobbing. A sharp crack alerted them to the arrival of Lucius who raced to the two kneeling figures tearing his mask off as he went.

"You weren't there," he said, his voice betraying the panic he'd felt when he had been unable to find her when the Aurors arrived. He pulled her up to examine her. "Are you okay? Are you injured?"

"I'm . . . fine," she said sounding oddly mechanical. "Severus grabbed me when the Aurors came. I hadn't seen them, it was just in time."

He turned to Severus. Now that he knew Ginny was safe and unharmed the scene he had Apparated in on suddenly filled his mind: Severus and Ginny kneeling on the ground, close to each other, her clinging to him, nearly hysterical, his hands on her, only on her arms but something about it was too familiar. And Ginny was upset but she stopped and went blank when he arrived. He set it aside. Severus was his oldest friend. And Ginny was now hugging him, Lucius, her face pressed to his neck.

"Thank you, Severus," he said automatically but a hint unease lay underneath.

Severus nodded cordially but there was an odd look on his face as Disapparated leaving the two in an embrace full of uncertainty.

"Draco Malfoy is dead."

Remus Lupin's words caused a profound silence to fall in kitchen of number 12 Grimmauld place. The death of anyone so young was a solemn and disturbing event even for those who didn't like the deceased.

Hermione looked down, her face slightly contorted like she was attempting not to cry. Harry and Ron merely stared blankly ahead stony-faced. It was a mark of just how unsettling this event was that even Ron, who hated Draco maybe more than any of them, didn't make light of his death even later after they were alone and the shock had dulled slightly.

"He was killed during an altercation with Aurors although I believe it was an accident," Mad-Eye said. "He was hit by a stunner and he happened to be standing too close to the edge. Just fell right over." He shivered, like he was trying to shake the image of it off. Harry identified with the feeling, suddenly seeing Draco falling backwards, frozen in a terrible loop in his head.

"The edge of what?" Harry asked.

Lupin and Mad-Eye exchanged a look as though deciding who should say it. Finally Lupin said, "The Astronomy tower at Hogwarts."

"What was he doing there? Why were Aurors chasing him? Was he a Death Eater?" Harry asked in a rapid fire barrage. As his quest to bring down Voldemort drew out over years now and he wasn't making much progress on it, a strange panic had enveloped him and he was jittery and distracted most of the time but jumped viciously on any bit of information that could help him. He knew he was likely running toward his own death but he couldn't stop.

"He was working as teacher there. It is believed that he was placed inside the school in an attempt to kill Professor Dumbledore," Lupin said grimly.

Hermione gasped before placing her hands over her face, concealing her distress from view of the others in the room.

"So he _was_ a Death Eater," Harry concluded.

"I cannot say," Lupin responded. "Although he did not have the Dark Mark, it can be reasonably assumed that he was working for Voldemort at the time, yes."

Hermione stood abruptly and muttered that she was tired and would go to bed. It was only eight thirty but no one questioned her. A few of the of the Order, including Lupin and Tonks, had been living in Grimmauld Place which was Harry's home along with being the Order's Headquarters still. It had taken Harry nearly a year to decide to come back here himself and he finally decided that even though Sirius had been very miserable here, he couldn't deny that it was here where the majority of his memories of his godfather had been made. He'd taken significant measures to make it his home and with the absence of Kreacher and a lot of redecorating, some done by Ginny before her disappearance, it was distinctly cheerier.

The meeting lasted another half hour and then all of the people who did not live there were ushered quickly to the door and bid whispered farewells until it was only Ron and Harry, left standing silent at the bottom of the staircase leading to the rest of the house. They paused outside Hermione's room, on the way to their own, listening to the unusual quiet within. She couldn't possibly be sleeping. Ron's face was a bit pale, unsure so Harry set his face and knocked softly on her door.

"Hermione, are you awake?" He called trying to sound casual.

A long moment elapsed in which they'd almost decided she _was _sleeping when the door opened and she stood looking at them with a helpless expression on her face which was noticeably tear stained even though she had obviously tried to clean herself up before coming to the door.

"Hermione, you're not crying over Malfoy, are you?" Ron blurted. There was more incredulity than cruelty in his tone.

Harry briefly considered elbowing him sharply for his unbelievable lack of tact but didn't. Instead he turned back to Hermione who seemed also decided to have let Ron's comment slide.

"Can we come in?" Harry asked.

She stood back so they could enter and then crossed to her bed where she had obviously been nesting before they interrupted. Harry shifted a pile of books and parchments so he could sit by her feet.

"Do you sleep with all this stuff on your bed?" he asked and she gave an involuntary wet laugh.

"Sometimes," she said then became serious again. "I'm just so afraid for her."

Both boys looked bewildered.

"I'm afraid you've lost us," Harry said bluntly.

"Ginny," she said as though this should be obvious.

Both boys now had a look halfway between comprehension and slight befuddlement.

She huffed at them, clearly exasperated. "Come on!" She said loudly and they both jumped a little. "Do you not think that the death of her husband's son must have effected her life in some way?"

"Don't call him that," Ron said with distain.

"Well he is, Ron. It doesn't matter if you like it or not. And since they were together long before she left or was kidnapped or whatever happened, we can assume that she wasn't forced so why don't you think about her instead of yourself. Wouldn't it be better to assume that she loves him than that she's being forced?"

The implication of her statement was deeply unsettling. Harry could see that while Ron certainly didn't want to think Ginny was some kind of prisoner the idea that she was actually in love with Lucius Malfoy was still unfathomable so he said nothing.

"I just wish we could talk to her," Hermione said, defeated.

"Well," Harry said, not sure if he should even say this although he had been thinking about it since Lupin's announcement although not in direct connection to Ginny. "There will probably be a funeral."

Ron and Hermione stared at him, mouths open, not speaking. Then Hermione leapt at him and hugged him tightly. Caught off guard by her reaction, he only just saved them both from crashing to the floor.

"I'll ask at work tomorrow," He said. He didn't tell them that sometimes he passed Lucius Malfoy in the corridors at work, in the one place they couldn't attack each other. Harry chose to ignore him but Malfoy always threw him a haughty smirk that made Harry's stomach feel hot. He thought of this now and a deep and terrible thing inside him hoped that he would be taken down a notch by this and then felt immediately ashamed of the thought. He felt no joy in Draco's death, only a weird ache as though he had lost a friend he had fallen out of touch with years before. He and Draco had never been friends so he didn't know where it was coming from but he chose to let it be instead of brushing it aside after bidding his two friends goodnight, he climbed the stairs to his bed to begin the unexpected process of mourning Draco Malfoy.

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_Note: So, because of the way it's written, because I didn't know how to prevent it without losing the momentum of the narrative, it appears that Ginny just puts on her cloak straight from the shower and goes on the Death Eater outing with no knickers. It wasn't my intent and it's such a serious scene but I can't stop laughing about it since I noticed it while editing. Hopefully a little mirth will help dull the extremely depressing tone of this chapter. Have a nice holiday everyone._


	7. A Friend of My Son's

_Notes: Okay. I'm so sorry this has taken so long. I was on vacation in New Orleans with an old friend and it was too busy to edit and post anything although I did try! Now I have my usual post-trip cold and I'm dying but I wanted to get something up for you guys even though this chapter is pretty short._

_Thank you for all the nice reviews, they're so pleasant to read and they fill me with ridiculous giddy joy._

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**Chapter Seven**

**A Friend of My Son's**

Harry scanned the Daily Prophet in the morning to see if there would be any details about Draco's odd death. There was no article but he found an obituary in the back.

_Draco Lucius Malfoy, 20, was killed in an apparent accident on Tuesday night at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry where he was currently employed at the post of Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher. He is survived by his father Lucius Abraxas Malfoy and his mother Narcissa Malfoy Black. _

They hadn't known what position he had held and Ron, now getting some of his snark back said, "Him? Defense Against the Dark Arts? And we thought Snape was bad."

Hermione, who was still looking very shaky ignored him and Harry said he'd better get to work. He could hear Ron muttering to himself even after he'd stepped into the flames and then he was swept away and stepped out a moment later into the vast Lobby of the Ministry of Magic. He was behind on a lot of paperwork, his least favorite part of his job, and it was lunchtime before he remembered that he'd meant to check with the Department of Death Records about a funeral for Draco.

He worked out of a small cubicle and shared a wall with Tonks. He popped his head over the wall and said, "Hey, Tonks, you don't know anything about a funeral for Malfoy, do you?" He'd just remembered that technically she was related to the Malfoys. Tonks, who had taken the death of her cousin, Harry's godfather, very badly was looking unusually grave this morning. He hadn't thought that she would have cared much about Draco and indeed wasn't certain they had ever met. She merely glanced at Harry before shaking her head and returning to the parchment in from of her which was full of a mass of meaningless doodles.

He took a lift down to the same floor as the Department of Mysteries. He hadn't been down here since he began working at the Ministry and found that memories of the night they had flown there on thestrals and been attacked by a pack of Death Eaters were not as terrible as he'd anticipated. He turned left out of the lift and came to an small window with a sign over it that read: **Department of Death Records **in plain block lettering. A scant little witch sat behind a desk inside this window. She looked to Harry like she might become a death record at any moment and so he addressed her softly.

"I can't hear you!" She barked in a surprisingly strong voice. "Why is everyone always _whispering_ at me? It's a records office. It's just papers. It's not like I've got a pile of corpses back there stuffed into cabinets . . . " Harry didn't know if this rant was something be was expected to respond to and so stood awkwardly, feeling very small suddenly, like the way he had felt on his first day knowing he was a wizard. It was also the first time he'd met Draco he realized. In _Madam Malkin's Robes for all Occasions_. It had never seemed significant before but he suddenly realized that his first acquaintance in the wizarding world who could be considered a peer was Draco, and if their conversation had just gone a little bit differently in the robe shop, or he had sat in another carriage on the train, basically, if he had become friends with _Draco_ instead of Ron and Hermione, his whole life would be different, their lives would. Would Ginny's? Would Draco be dead now? It was an heartbreaking train of thought.

Apparently, he had been standing there musing longer than he thought because the witch snapped at him, "What's wrong with you? Been Confunded? What do you need?"

In a voice he was careful to make clear and definitely not in any way whispery Harry apologized and said, "I was hoping you could tell me, you see a . . . friend of mine, well, died recently and there was no information in the paper about his funeral so I was hoping . . . " The witch was just staring at him, the look on her face not very encouraging.

"Why don't you ask his family?"

"Well, I don't really know them," Harry said. It was true enough, he'd only met Lucius on three occasions and Draco's mother just once. "We were in school together. I haven't seen him since we graduated actually."

"Right, well, what's his name then?"

"Draco Malfoy."

"Oh, yes, sad that." She waved her wand behind her almost carelessly and a few papers flew into her hand. She read through them muttering a word here and there and then finally said, "No, sorry. Nothing here, his family hasn't filed any funeral services with us. Usually that means they're having a private funeral . . . " She trailed off, looking past Harry and then said, "Oh, but there's his father there, you could go on and ask him yourself."

Harry turned and found himself facing Lucius Malfoy who looked just as surprised to see Harry. For most people, the way Lucius looked could have been put down to a bad night of drink or just not having enough time to shower in the morning, slightly disheveled. But for Lucius, who was generally impeccable, his appearance was quite shocking. He looked exhausted and his face was unshaven. His clothes were slightly wrinkled and the usual silken mane of his hair was messy and looked unwashed. Harry backed away from the window and started toward the lift, forgetting even to thank the clerk.

The lift must have been up in the top floor and dropping people off the whole way down because Harry felt like he'd been waiting forever by the time he realized that Lucius, who had managed to complete his business apparently, was standing next to him waiting as well.

"So, you're a friend of my son's?" Lucius said, the tone of his voice was inscrutable.

Harry was afraid to answer.

"Well, maybe if he'd had better friends . . . " Lucius trailed off. The implication that maybe Draco would be alive and that maybe Harry would have been an acceptable friend hung uncomfortably in the air.

"I'm sorry about Draco," Harry said. His tone was sincere and he thought he saw Lucius nod slightly in acknowledgement. "I was only trying to find out about his funeral."

"Yes, that's what Mabel said."

Harry realized Lucius must have been referring to the witch in the records room. "We thought we'd go. If that's okay."

"Who is 'we'?"

"Well, myself and probably Ron. Hermione. It was her idea actually," Harry said. He knew that Hermione's Muggle-born status had always been an issue with the Malfoys and he wanted to make sure that Lucius knew now so he could say whatever awful thing he wanted about her to Harry instead of to Hermione's face at the funeral.

"That sounds . . . fine," Lucius said. And then, "I am sure Ginny would wish to see you all. I will have the details sent to you. Although, I hope it goes without saying that I do not wish for the entire Order of the Phoenix to invade my son's funeral."

During this, the most insane conversation of his life, Harry had a moment of clarity in which the lines between good and evil suddenly blurred disorientingly. He had always thought that Lucius Malfoy was a monster, a man without morality or caring. But his appearance now, fairly obviously caused by the death of his son, and the way he immediately considered Ginny in this decision of whether to allow them to attend the funeral made him see that Lucius was only a man with the capacity for good and evil in him. Just like all men. Just like Harry himself.

"Thanks," Harry said. And they stepped into the lift together as the doors parted. Harry wasn't sure if he would tell Ron and Hermione exactly how he had obtained the information about Draco's funeral. Partly because he had no desire to try to describe this weird, broken Lucius Malfoy next to him. Whether or not he'd liked the arrogant and cruel version of Lucius, seeing this new version was deeply unsettling. It was a reminder that Voldemort destroyed everything, even his own followers. He wondered if Lucius had been thinking that when he'd said the thing about Draco having better friends. Or if he ever regretted getting involved in Voldemort's crusade.

It seemed like it would be impossible not to after something like this.

Ginny was sitting in the library when she heard the crack of someone Apparating. Only Lucius and Severus ever Apparated directly into the house and she rose from her chair to go greet whichever it was. In the entrance hall however, stood a tall, very thin witch with very blonde hair. Narcissa Malfoy.

"Where's Lucius?" She demanded imperiously without even a greeting as soon as she saw Ginny, as though she were a servant rather than the rightful mistress of the house.

"He's gone to the ministry, he should be back anytime," Ginny said courteously, proud of how strong her voice sounded.

"Fine," Narcissa said. "I'll wait in his study, he likes to go there when he's feeling depressed." She said and Ginny fully understood that Narcissa was attempting to make her feel like she, Ginny, would never know Lucius the way Narcissa did.

"You weren't together you know," she called suddenly after her.

Narcissa turned slowly.

"You weren't married, you know. When Lucius . . . when we . . . started seeing each other," Ginny said. What she meant was, "I didn't steal your husband, so stop acting like a bitch."

Narcissa started toward her, a furious rant exploding from her mouth as she came. "_What?_ Do you think that because Lucius waited a whole two months after our divorce before he started screwing you that that makes you anything but a filthy little blood-traitorous slag!?" She drew her hand back obviously intending to punctuate her final words with a slap from her long, bony hand.

Lucius had Apparated in to hear the end of this nasty speech and took a large step forward to seize Narcissa's wrist mid-swing.

"Apologize," he said to her in a voice full of quiet malice. Ginny had never heard him sound like that and she was momentarily afraid of him.

"It's okay, Lucius-" She started.

"No," he said firmly. "You've done nothing wrong, Ginny. I won't have you treated as though you have."

"Apologize, Narcissa," he said again and when it seemed like she might just refuse he said, "I'll remind you that it was you who sought a divorce." It was a cruel thing to say, to remind Narcissa that the only reason he was now here, married to Ginny and that this was no longer her house, was because she had left him.

"Forgive me," she said to Ginny although the look on her face was far from apologetic. She wrenched her hand from Lucius' grasp and added nastily, "It didn't save our son though did it?"

The anger drained from Lucius' replaced by the same look Ginny had seen on his face every day since the news of Draco's death had reached them. It was as though someone had pulled his soul out and removed several large pieces before replacing it all flimsy and full of irreparable holes.

The Dark Lord had insisted on telling Lucius himself and when he arrived back at Malfoy Manor he had screamed for an hour straight until his voice gave out. Ginny had simply knelt beside him where he lay on the floor and held him in her small arms, crying herself, silently, into his shoulder. She was crying for Draco as well as for a secret she'd been holding onto for months, terrified to tell her husband.

"We need to discuss _our_ _son's_ funeral," Narcissa said for Ginny's benefit. And she swept from the room toward Lucius' study.

He embraced Ginny briefly, placed a kiss on her cheek and turned resolutely to follow his ex-wife. The feeling that Ginny would not ever have the chance to talk to Lucius about _their_ son was starting to worry her.

* * *

_Note: **I know!** Yes, a baby. Sigh. Such a fanfic cliche. I know all of you saw this coming a mile away. Some more exciting things are coming I promise!_


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